The palace was no longer what Lilith rembered. Once a place of majesty—grand marble floors, towering spires that glead with infernal power—it now bore the cold efficiency of a fortress under Aamon’s rule. The faint sll of iron lingered in every corner, mingled with the sharper tang of blood. Devils in blackened armor patrolled the corridors with military precision, their eyes glowing with the sickly hue of forced loyalty.
Zero kept close to the shadows, every movent economical, silent. His hand hovered near the hilt of his blade, but he didn’t draw it. A drawn blade ant noise. And noise ant death.
Lilith’s steps were lighter than his, almost ghostlike, though hesitation flickered in her every glance. She had walked these halls before, but back then, she was a child. The palace had been alive with ceremonies, servants, and the subtle dread of being too near power. Now, those fragnts of mory guided her in strange ways—down passages no guard seed to notice, through crumbling side corridors whose walls still bore faint scratches from another age.
"The prison..." she whispered, pausing at a fork where two corridors stretched into silence. "It should be beneath the lower keep. Aamon may have reinforced the entrances, but he wouldn’t have risked moving the forr king elsewhere. Keeping him close ans keeping control."
Zero’s eyes scanned the branching halls, sharp and calculating. His senses were taut like a bowstring; every flicker of movent, every muffled footstep of a distant guard, every fluctuation in the air pressed into his awareness. He nodded once, letting Lilith take the lead again.
They descended deeper, and with each step Lilith’s heart tightened. The further they went, the colder the air beca, as if the palace itself exhaled frost from its ancient bones. Torches flickered in iron sconces, throwing twisted shadows across cracked stone.
Lilith pressed against the wall as a squad of devils marched past—held soldiers carrying long spears tipped with cursed steel. Zero’s fingers brushed the air, ready to silence them, but she shook her head, guiding him to a narrow alcove where they waited, hearts beating in asured rhythm, until the footsteps faded.
Her hand lingered on the wall, tracing a scar in the stone. "I rember this... I was small when I saw it last. A servant dropped a tray here. They punished him for it." Her voice faltered, but she forced it steady. "The prison is close."
Zero studied her in the dim light. She carried the weight of old wounds here, the kind that never healed. But there was sothing more—a strange softness hidden beneath her tension, the remnants of a childhood spent in the very halls now twisted by war.
Lilith let her hand fall from the wall and walked on. mories rose unbidden, sharper now that she was within these walls.
There had been days when the palace wasn’t filled with soldiers. When it wasn’t a place of fear. Her father—stern to others but never to her—had filled it with music and laughter. Entertainers ca from across the domain, filling the grand halls with stories, songs, and dances. Servants had bustled through the corridors not with grim discipline, but with warmth, often slipping her sweets when her father wasn’t looking. She rembered hiding behind marble pillars to watch the entertainers perform, and clapping until her small hands hurt when fire-dancers spun flas in perfect arcs.
Even without her mother, who had never been there since the day she was born, Lilith had not felt unloved. Her father had made sure of it. He had been both king and parent, strict yet gentle, shielding her from whispers that her birth had co at a cost. He would sit with her in the evenings after council etings, his massive fra bent to fit her small world. Sotis he told her stories—of the realms before devils had risen, of the old battles that shaped their people. Other tis, he simply let her talk, his heavy hand resting on her hair in silent comfort.
She smiled faintly, though the expression hurt. "He never let feel the absence of a mother," she murmured, half to herself. "He gave everything. Made the palace feel alive."
Her voice grew quieter, as though speaking too loudly might wake the ghosts of the past.
"I used to play in the gardens. They were wide and full of flowers, even though no one believed such colors could grow in the Devil’s Domain. Father had them planted for , said they would remind that beauty wasn’t reserved for other races. I wasn’t allowed beyond the palace walls... not until much later. But back then, I didn’t care. The gardens were my world."
Zero listened without interruption. He knew she wasn’t speaking for his sake, but because the mories demanded a voice before the darkness swallowed them.
"Sotis," she whispered, "there were festivals. I would sit by his side on the high seat, watching the entire palace glow with light. Jugglers, dancers, even beasts tad for spectacle... the air would feel alive. I rember thinking nothing could ever harm us. That this palace, this family, would stand forever." Her steps slowed, her hand brushing against the cold stone of the stairwell. "But it didn’t. The mont I left for the mission in the Human Domain, everything changed. Everything I thought eternal crumbled."
Her words hung heavy in the air, weighed down by guilt and longing.
Zero’s gaze stayed forward, though his voice was low. "You were a child. What happened wasn’t yours to bear."
But Lilith’s jaw tightened. She carried it anyway. She always would.
They slipped into a stairwell spiraling downward. Damp air rose to et them, heavy with the stench of confinent. The walls grew rougher, unpolished, marked by chains that still clinked faintly with the echoes of past prisoners. A faint red glow pulsed at the bottom—wards of confinent, old enchantnts ant to keep even devils from breaking free.
Lilith froze on the last step. Her breath caught. "This is it," she murmured, voice trembling between certainty and fear. "The prison is just ahead."
Zero’s gaze followed hers. At the end of the corridor, heavy iron doors lood, etched with sigils that pulsed faintly like veins of fire. Two guards stood before it, not armored soldiers this ti but towering figures with wings furled tight against their backs—elite wardens, chosen to watch over the most dangerous captive.
Zero’s hand drifted to his blade. "We’ll need to be silent. Quick. If they sound an alarm..."
"I know." Lilith’s eyes hardened. For the first ti, the mories that had weighed her down seed to sharpen her resolve instead of clouding it.
The prison where the forr devil king was locked away was within reach. But every step forward was a risk, and Zero knew one mistake could shatter their mission—and with it, the fragile hope of turning the war.
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